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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Corwina Park and the Panorama Point Trail

As an avid hiker, especially along the Front Range, I expect that I know a lot of the hiking trails in the area and when one is brought to my attention that I haven't hiked, well I just need to go hike it!

Since having Magnolia, I have become familiar with some local mama's hiking groups, but I only recently decided to do a hike with the Colorado Mountain Mama's group. We had a great time on the trail at Lookout Mountain and I checked their schedule to see when we could hike again and came across the Corwina Park hike. Unfortunately, Magnolia and I weren't able to hike with the Colorado Mountain Mama's group that day, but we hiked it as a family over the weekend. The hike was perfect, a beautiful trail with scenic views, a pine forest to keep you shady, a stream that the dogs were able to drink from (for part of the trail) and tons of wildflowers along the way! The trail is part of the Denver Mountain Parks System and the trail is actually the Corwina - O'Fallon Trail.

Getting there / Specs: From the Denver area take C-470 into Morrison and drive through the town and continue on Hwy 72/Hwy 8 for about 7 miles until you see the Corwina Park sign, skip this lot and keep driving another .7 of a mile to the trailhead on the left side of the road. There is a brown Corwina Park sign immediately before the turn off, which looks like you are entering a driveway rather than a trailhead. There are no bathrooms here (the closest are back at the first Corwina Park parking lot) but there is a trailhead with a map of the area's hikes. You can see the trail map here. When we hiked here last Sunday, I thought that the trail would be very popular because Lair O' the Bear (which you will pass on your way up 74 to the parking lot) was packed, but to our surprise the trailhead was not crowded on this beautiful weekend day.

Check out the trail map when you begin, but the route was easy to follow, take the trail from the lot and after about 1 mile it intersects with another trail but its well marked and just continue to follow the Panorama Point signs to the top! The trail is moderately difficult and the distance is 2.8 miles in total going out and back.

The Hike: We arrived at the correct trailhead after stopping at the first Corwina Park parking lot and realizing we were in the wrong place for the hike, thankfully the smart phone told us to keep driving to the second parking lot. Once we arrived to a surprisingly sparse parking lot, we quickly got the dogs and baby re-loaded up and started hiking!

After seeing this post, one of my readers Nicole posted a link to the Denver Parks Map of the area, click here for this. Thank you Nicole! Here is a photo that I took of the trail map on a very sunny day.

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The large trees along the trail reminded me of Oregon; I guess they aren't large to the oak trees where I grew up in Michigan, but seeing huge pine trees in the foothills is rare here unless they are near a water source.

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Shortly after we started the hike, I felt dead weight on my back and Josh confirmed that Magnolia had fallen asleep. While she was chewing on the strap of our Ergo Carrier. I love carrying her in the Ergo, its super comfortable, but the drawbacks are that it doesn't hold my water and I can't get Magnolia onto my back by myself. I'd like to get a hiking backpack, but we were gifted two of them and neither fits me very comfortably, however they fit Josh great, so he carries her in the backpack often as well. I just wish they were cheaper, price is well over $100 typically for a good pack!

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After some moderately difficult hiking along the creekside, the trail levels out in a beautiful meadow, complete with aspen trees and wildflowers!

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This is the second trail split sign (first is not pictured) and you can see my husband and our dogs in the distance heading up the path. After the meadow the trail gets steeper as you get to the top of the mountain. Its still moderate compared to other hikes, and it was a great hike for carrying a baby.

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(penstemon)

The trail was filled with wildflowers and I couldn't help stopping and snapping a bunch of pictures along the way. The trail was lined with many different kinds of yellow, purple and white flowers.

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Magnolia and I nearing the top of the trail, she is still sleeping in this shot, but not for long! And she made herself heard on the hike back down!

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I kept thinking we were going to be at the viewpoint and then we'd round another corner and walk through more meadow-type terrain. But after about 0.5 of a mile, according to the trail map, you reached the top.

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(penstemon)

After rounding the bend, there was another small field to hike through full of, yup, more flowers!

Nearing the top we started to get a glimpse of the great views we would be appreciating and I remarked that I couldn't believe I hadn't found this trail before! It's so close to us, and offers such great views and miles of trail; we've been to Lair O'the Bear numerous times, but I never knew Corwina Park had trails. Maybe its one of the better kept trail secrets?

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On the top there were great views of the town of Kittridge and Mt. Evans and the Continental Divide in the Distance! It started to sprinkle lightly on us as we sat on the top, ate some snacks, fed Magnolia and rested under the pine trees on the rock outcroppings. The trail does continue past this viewpoint, which is not shown on the map, and I assume it loops up to the Lair O' the Bear trail, but I am not certain of this. We continued on the trail for a little ways, but it went downhill and so we turned back the way we came. The hike took about 2.5 hours, but we didn't go fast at all, stopped often and ate lunch on the top.

Have you hiked here recently, or nearby, please leave a comment with any questions or info you might have? I am looking forward to hiking at O'Fallon Park in Kittridge in the near future. If you'd like to be updated when a new hike is posted, please click here to sign up!

6 comments:

I have been lurking on your site for a while and have enjoyed your posts. I run a hiking club at my work and have used at least one of your reviews to pick one of our hikes. Thanks! I apologize that my first comment also contains a slight critique. The flowers in the post are actually penstemon, not larkspur :) Weighing in on the backpack carrier. I have the REI pack and have been very happy with it. It is adjustable enough to fit me and my wife. We can also use it for our 4.5 year old son and 2 year old daughter. Very versatile.

Hi Jason, thanks for the correction. You'd think that I'd be able to figure out a type of flower when I have the book in front of me, but so many look so similar to me! Is the pack just the REI brand, does it have a sun shade? I'll have to check out their packs, thanks for the info!

Penstemon are pretty common and pretty easy to identify once you know the pattern. All penstemon (that I know of) have the 2 petal lobes on the top and 3 petal lobes on the bottom fused into the tube at the back. The range in color from pink to blue to purple. The flowers don't get much bigger than the ones you saw, but they do get smaller. If you want to get really geeky, they also have opposite, waxy leaves on the stems.

In contrast, larkspur has the characteristic "spur" that extends from the back of the flower and is not connected to the stem.

The REI brand does have a removable sun shade, but I don't recall ever using it.

Yes, this is a very good hike. Can be a bit hard to find on the internet because it is a Denver mountain park, not part of a Jeffco or other system. I now am familiar with it which works out very well.

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Welcome, I am
Jennifer a new mother to
Magnolia and wife to my husband Joshua - Hiking, camping and photography are some of my favorite things to do; I also enjoy blogging, gardening, and
spending time outside enjoying nature. Check out more information about me and about my nature photo prints or photography sessions for all occasions!